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Thursday, 12 December 2013

We walk among you. Wherever your lives take you within this world, we are there, and we are many. We are not superior, we simply know more... far more... and none of you are safe.

Sam has always had the gift of reading auras and seeing future events. But since beginning college, her gifts are strengthening - becoming more foreboding. Dark visions she can't explain haunt her daily. She senses danger but doesn't know why. Meeting gorgeous Olympic swimming star Trin Kosolov, who shares her extra sensory abilities, only seems to intensify the imminent peril.

Sam soon discovers she was born with an identity she never knew she had and finds herself fighting for her life as she and Trin struggle to save humanity from an evil that could ultimately destroy them all.

Available for purchase at

My Review

5 STARS

My God, I don't even know where to begin to describe the merits of this book. SHINE comprises every element you could want in a great novel. It has engaging characters that are well described, relatable and easily imagined. It has a superbly rich series of exciting settings and vivid new places to be transported to. The dialogue is fresh, clear and charming, and the plot is a cleverly-woven story that is simple to follow but deep, dark and complex at the same time.

This book was always pleasant to pick up, I was never bored or eager to skip over the pages, and every sentence added value to the tale. Amy Freeman is a prolific writer who deserves every success with this book and in her future endeavours, and she proves that independent writers can produce novels that are of the same discerning standards of professional publishing (if not better, in my opinion). I cannot wait for the sequel to this book to be once again enveloped in the incredible world of Veduny and their paranormal powers.

Having read the first edition of SHINE I was keen to see what had been altered in the second. This new edition brings with it some revamped scenes where the action and dialogue balance has become a lot more punchy and effective. The prose in those sections now flows in the same effortless style as the rest of the read, making the overall experience a delight from start to finish. I am desperately awaiting more.

Keep up the amazing work Amy!

This book is officially rated as HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Excerpt

Sam climbed out of the shower
and dried off. She was confused, even angry. Never before had she sensed such
conflicted energy in another person.What was wrong with him? Wrapped in a towel, she raced over to
her dresser and began digging for clothes. Bra, underwear, jeans—she tossed it
all onto her bed and made a beeline for her closet. Should she be offended? And that intensity…that wasn’t normal.

Sam had never been in love
before, but this surpassed anything she had ever even heard of. Opening
the closet door she found a shirt, pulled it from the hanger, and tossed it on
the bed with everything else. She reached in the back, grabbing a jacket and
threw it on the bed as well. Tossing the towel aside she began dressing with
lightning speed, confusion and unanswered questions running through her head
the entire time.

She
didn’t know how much longer she could take this. She pulled her underwear on,
then grabbed her bra. She let out an exasperated breath as she slipped her arms
through the straps and reached back to fasten the hook. If something didn’t give soon—she stopped. Lifting her head
toward her bedroom door, she focused. A familiar security swept through
the room. Eyes still on the door, she grabbed for her robe and pulled it on.
The short hemline and thin satin material didn’t conceal much, but her thoughts
lay elsewhere, captivated by the glorious energy filling the room. Why was he
back?

She crossed her room, following
the energy to its source, the dormitory hall. Tying the sash, she moved to the
front door, stopping in front of it. Heart hammering in her chest, she
placed her hand on the doorknob and turned it. As the lock disengaged she
cracked the door.

He stood, beautiful, frustrated,
and still wet. One arm rested on the door jamb, head bowed as if he had been
arguing with himself. His shirt clung to his muscled body, sun streaked hair
damp and shaggy around his tanned face. At the sound of the door his thick
black lashes lifted. He froze. His conflicted energy swept through her as his
electric blue eyes scanned her body. Sam’s fist tightened around her sash,
biting down on her bottom lip, barely able to breathe as his eyes traced every
curve, revealing angst of unexpected erotic desire—and he found her eyes.

He had nothing left. Caught
completely off guard, his strength broke, conflict won out. In all the moments
leading up to this one…when she thought she needed him, he now realized
how much he truly needed her.

Self-preservation flooded
through him. His restraint, will power, every device he had ever used to
control or extinguish his own needs and desires came crashing down around him
before he even had a chance to engage them.

His initial reason for coming
back vanished. Shoving the door open, he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her
to him. He slammed the door shut. His lips pressed against hers, ravenous,
taking what he needed. Nothing else mattered to him. Nothing.

Drawing him in, Sam’s fingers pushed
through his hair, repressed desire set free, building with every touch, every
caress. She molded to him as he lifted her against the wall. Liberating
release flooded his veins, as if he were experiencing sunlight or truly
breathing for the first time. Decadent power flowed unlike anything he had ever
experienced. His lips left hers as he hungrily searched every aspect of
her neck, his labored breath hot against her skin as he crushed her to him. She
gasped, trying to find air—the way this felt—indescribable.

Energy in the room spiked as their auras merged, his
energy fusing with hers.

Sam grabbed his dampened shirt,
pushing it up his sculpted back, his powerful muscles moving beneath her hands
as he helped her pull it over his head. Wanting more, hearts racing, blood
pumping, her craving fingers explored his powerful chest, pushing past his
naked shoulders, caressing his neck and lacing her fingers into his hair—she
pulled.

Trin gasped, responding to the
erotic pain, arousal flooding his body. He found her lips again, pursuing,
pushing. Reason and reality had disappeared. Trin was taken, lost in the
seduction of the woman he loved. Wherever her ravenous fingers went the
tension, stress, and pressure melted away beneath them, erasing the pain, the
doubt, and the crushing fear of defeat. He welcomed it.

A few broad strides to her room,
back to the bed he had forced himself to leave only ten minutes earlier. His
powerful body covered her, his soft lips moving passionately against hers.

A measurable physical science
erupted within the room, elements working together in a feeding frenzy as
preparation set in to ignite a power that had not been alive for a
century.

Trin’s strong hand slid down the
side of Sam’s body, his large fingers wrapped around her thigh pulling it up
around his torso.

A voice—buried deep within the
euphoria of the moment—nagging him.

Annoyed by the distraction he
pushed it out, driven by his aching need for her. Never having experienced such
power, he was unprepared to fight it, and in this moment he was unwilling to fight it.

Sam’s fingers pressed into his
back, her breath sweet and inviting on his neck, the exhilarating warmth of her
mouth tracing the length from his collar bone to his jaw line, then pulling his
face back to hers, erotic softness of her lips molding to his over and over
again.

Stop. Not yet.

His hand moved to the sash on
her robe, pulling at the knot, loosening the tie.

You have not earned her yet!

Trin flinched—pausing, the words
rattled him. His pumping heart forced labored breath as conflict and truth
wrestled for his attention. She was his Goddess, his sacred prize, yet he had
given her nothing.

Sam’s hand slid beneath the
waistband of his jeans, pulling at the buttons. The sensation of her fingers
yanked him back to her. A throaty groan escaped him as his lips covered hers. He
pulled the sash loose, the warmth of her skin flooding him like a drug and he followed
its beckoning pull.

Searing gold hummed around her,
energy of living intelligence full of life and light—all elements positioned
and ready to accomplish their reason for being: to ignite the Oracle power.

You will lose her!

“Sam,
wait—” Trin stopped, catching her hand in an iron fist at his lower torso.

About the Author

Amy Freeman grew up in Salt Lake City in a family of five siblings, one of which is an identical twin. She spent most of her time as a child daydreaming and creating stories. She wrote a stellar screen play at ten, her first full length book at age thirteen, and her second and third at age nineteen. She has been published in Meridian magazine, Moab Adventures magazine and has just released her debut novel SHINE the Knowing Ones —the award-winning first edition in the SHINE series. She is active in several writing and critique groups and maintains an online page for writers.

Book Two SHINE: Domination is in the works with an anticipated release next year. Amy lives in St. Augustine Florida with her husband and youngest son, Jackson.

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

If there was ever an embodiment of the idea of the ‘troubled teen’, then it was me, but probably not in the way you’d think.

I wasn’t, for example, a smoker or a boozer; I didn’t stay out late or smuggle anything (or anyone) untoward into my room at home. In fact, I stayed in. A lot. I would come home from high school aged 15 and find myself crawling straight into my bed at four o’clock, out cold until gone six and still in my uniform with Mum calling me down for dinner. My entire life was a pattern of eat, sleep, school, sleep, eat and so on; not a scrap of energy or enthusiasm for life, waiting desperately for the time when I could throw off the shackles of the 9-to-4 school day and finally use what little pep I had to do something better with my life. A myriad of doctors and therapists told me that I was depressed and filled me up with drugs, packing me back off to school like that was the answer to my problems.

It took me a further four years to work out what was really going on.

At age 13 I developed what I now know to be called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.), a debilitating physical condition that attacks every major system in your body from the nervous and digestive systems to the musculoskeletal, hormonal and beyond. Between the ages of 13 and 16 (what some would call the best years of your life) I went from being a spritely, bright child to a surly, aching, exhausted teen who saw every morning as just one more day of pain coming her way. I dropped out of school and spent eighteen months trying to recover from what I was still being told was depression and anxiety, but no matter what I tried I just couldn’t get better. I knew that there had to be another explanation; I just had to find a way to prove it.

For my 18th birthday I was taken away for a week’s holiday. I deliberately didn’t pack my anti-depressants, suffering a week of cold-turkey withdrawal in order to flush them out of my system once and for all. This is not a practice recommended by doctors and I don’t advocate it, but it was the only thing I felt able to do at the time. Coming home from that holiday I had a fresh perspective on my physical health, realising that I was never mentally depressed, but that my body was the one letting me down. I had an illness and it took me another whole year before I met a doctor who could put the label M.E. to my symptoms.

Armed with this knowledge I returned to college and then went on to university, all the while making my way through different doctors and different treatments until I could find one who would push to get the diagnosis I so desperately needed. I was 22 years old when the letter finally came to tell me what I had been suffering from for the last nine years. It was a relief, but also a sadness, the final confirmation that I am living with a condition that has no known cure and will be likely to affect me for the rest of my life. At the point when I received that letter in November 2011, I felt as though the life I had been wading through suddenly needed a new purpose and a proper direction, something I would still be able to achieve if and when my condition worsened.

So I started to write.

I have written several self-published books in the last twelve months and it has been pointed out to me repeatedly that each one of them contains characters that are physically limited, pained and/or mentally scarred in some way. This is no co-incidence, but it is something that was creeping into my work without a definite conscious knowledge; I think I simply found it more engaging personally to write about imperfect people. That was until I sat down to write my first novel for Clean Teen Publishing, entitled The Mind’s Eye. In this book my central character suffers from Juvenile Systemic Arthritis, a severe and debilitating condition that presents many of the same musculoskeletal symptoms that I face every day. Whilst I am not always bound to a wheelchair, the immobility that my character Kit faces isn’t just about her legs not working. The Mind’s Eye is an exciting wartime adventure with paranormal fun, but at its heart it is also a story about a girl just like me, struggling to work out how to find a place in the world where she can feel valued and still be useful to the people she cares about.

Scenes within The Mind’s Eye are a mixture of Kit’s psychic visions of the Second World War interspersed with her own struggles in her home life. I have a feeling that some people might consider those latter scenes to be the ‘boring bits’, the ‘filler’ that has to happen between the tense, exciting action moments. To me, however, I could take or leave the incredible and heart breaking scenes of war, because the real struggle that touches my heart is that of a lonely young girl quite literally trying to stand on her own two feet in a world where all the odds are stacked against her. When you read The Mind’s Eye, spare a thought for Kit and the life she has to lead every day, because her fictional creation represents countless other people out there who face physical and emotional struggles that ordinary folk can barely comprehend.

The real story of The Mind’s Eye isn’t that of the glorious Allies beating back Jerry, but of Kit Cavendish beating back the sentence that life has handed her with the newfound love and support of the people around her. It is a story that is very important to me and I sincerely hope it will find a place in your hearts too.

The Mind's Eye will be released on April 1st 2014 by Clean Teen Publishing, followed by other books in the Synsk series.

COVER REVEAL AND ARC GIVEAWAY:

A girl with a telepathic gift finds a boy clinging to his last hope during the war-torn climate of Europe, 1940.

At fifteen, Kit Cavendish is one the oldest evacuees to escape London at the start of the Second World War due to a long term illness that sees her stuck in a wheelchair most of the time. But Kit has an extraordinary psychic power: she can put herself into the minds of others, see through their eyes, feel their emotions, even talk to them – though she dares not speak out for fear of her secret ability being exposed.

As Kit settles into her new life in the North Wales village of Bryn Eira Bach, solitude and curiosity encourage her to gain better control of her gift. Until one day her search for information on the developing war leads her to the mind of Henri, a seventeen-year-old Norwegian boy witnessing the German occupation of his beloved city, Oslo. As Henri discovers more about the English girl occupying his mind, the psychic and emotional bonds between them strengthen and Kit guides him through an oppressive and dangerous time.

There are secrets to be uncovered, both at home and abroad, and it’s up to Kit and Henri to come together and fight their own battles in the depths of the world’s greatest war.

GIVEAWAY:

Enter to win an Advance Release Copy of The Mind's Eye by K.C. Finn and a Clean Teen Publishing- Authors Are My Rockstars bracelet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born in South Wales to Raymond and Jennifer Finn, Kimberley Charlotte Elisabeth Finn (known to readers as K.C., otherwise it'd be too much of a mouthful) was one of those corny little kids who always wanted to be a writer. She was also incredibly stubborn, and so has finally achieved that dream in 2013 with the release of her first three novellas in the four-part Caecilius Rex saga, the time travel adventure The Secret Star and her new urban fantasy epic The Book Of Shade.

As a sufferer with the medical condition M.E./C.F.S., Kim works part time as a private tutor and a teacher of creative writing, devoting the remainder of her time to writing novels and studying for an MA in Education and Linguistics.

K.C. Finn signed with Clean Teen Publishing in late 2013. Her first book published with Clean Teen Publishing: The Mind's Eye, is scheduled to release on April 1, 2014.

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